Ag Food and Resource Economics Summer Experiences

Blog Post #3: Sales floor

This past week I have worked with our Visual Merchandiser to help create floor plans for our store. At Target, the Visual Merchandiser is in charge of many tasks such as style-focals, creating floor sets and seasonal sets, decorating mannequins, practically creating every visual display that is out on the floor. This past week I shadowed her and observed what she does on a daily basis.

Luckily, it was the time where Target stores received its new “Visual Adjacency Book” for the next month, so I was able to witness how everything comes to life from the pictures in a pamphlet onto the sales floor. I found it very interesting that every month corporate headquarters sends a list of visual adjacency books that are sectioned off for each department of the store, which have an exact layout of how they want the visual merchandiser to display their products for the month From the way the lighting is aimed to how pants should be hung, these books are extremely detailed.

While shadowing our visual merchandiser, she first looks at the books for a little while and reads them very thoroughly and takes notes on what needs to be changed. Another part I found very interesting was that although corporate headquarters want you to follow their outline, not every store is given the proper fixtures to create these displays. I’ve also learned that this is where one must be creative and think on their feet because it is up to the visual merchandiser to create a new set up due to lack of supplies.

Once our merchandiser came up with a plan, we then moved to the back room where we began to pull the new products that were going to be displaying. Aftter that was completed, we then pulled the proper fixtures and shelves we needed to construct this display. Once we collected all of our supplies and inventory, it was then time to get creative and make this visual display. Although we followed the book to the best of our ability, we created a display that looked like this:

This is just one example of how we made these visuals in the book come to life. As a customer, you don’t really pay attention to how everything is set up, you just care about what products are there. It was fascinating how important these displays are because there are certain sales methods to why they are pairing certain outfits together. It was very neat to see how it was created from start to finish.

In summary, I enjoyed working with our Visual Merchandiser. It was great to shadow her for the week and see what her job entails on a daily basis. I’ve learned that this type of job may not be for everyone. You must have a creative eye and be an innovative thinker.